On health in general, the county rankings document measures such as low birthweight babies, smoking prevalence, obesity and physical activity. Information on states and counties is downloadable, such as this presentation of data from Maryland or this one from Baltimore County. The rankings present statistics and include an assessment of a county’s overall health, in a “How Healthy is Your Community?” analysis.

On opioids specifically, the rankings in 2016 included some additional information on deaths. The measure is calculated as the number of deaths due to drug poisoning per 100,000 population. The data come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its National Center for Health Statistics and are further refined by foundation and university experts.